St David's Day (2009) Retrospective Prospects

It's St David's Day again, a day which ought to have some significance for non-green-eyed heifers and suchlike. It is a day that never fails to evoke mixed feelings from me. I remember writing, two years ago, about how it took more than 50 years to invite one man to speak at the St David's Day service, simply because he was not a meritocrat. It was the first time I'd thought specifically about posting on that particular day.

In retrospect, it was my next St David's Day post which might have convinced certain powers that I ought to leave as soon as possible. Then again, there is nothing harmful in what I wrote then, or in the next two weeks or so leading to the end of my contract.

Sometimes, it is in looking backwards that we end up looking forwards. We don't want to always be looking backwards, and sometimes faith insists that we do not at all. But occasionally, the broad sweep of history requires a firm grasp of the broom handle that precedes the brush.

Here is what I see. I see an institution of learning that is failing to learn anything. It is in many ways a lot like the Republican presidency of recent to-be-forgotten-ness, full of old and dangerous ideas possessed by an alarming and unnatural vitality and executed by people somewhat lacking in either introspection or scruples. I am quite sure that the majority of the present administration in that institution would have voted for John McCain over Barack Obama anytime. It is obvious why, just as it is equally obvious that they are capable enough to drag out the years as some sort of triumph when they are actually undermining the principles of the founders.

We can but look forward and think about the prospects; after our retrospective look, regretful and slightly melancholic, we are assured that it's more likely that the best is yet to be, but first the worst must come.